BERLIN – Germany’s Transport Minister on Thursday strongly opposed plans to ban the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines across the European Union in 2035, arguing that such a move would discriminate against synthetically powered vehicles. EU lawmakers on Wednesday voted in favor of a measure requiring carmakers to cut carbon emissions by 100% by the middle of the next decade, effectively banning the sale to the 27-nation bloc of new petrol or diesel cars. The plan, which has yet to be approved by EU member states, will significantly boost electric vehicles because lawmakers have refused to exempt cars running on synthetic fuels from the ban. It will hurt the German carmakers, which have focused on powerful and expensive vehicles with internal combustion engines, while lagging behind foreign rivals in terms of electric cars. “We do not agree with the decisions,” German Transport Minister Volker Wissing told reporters in Berlin. “We want to shape the transformation in a way that is technologically open,” he said. “This includes the classification of new cars after 2035, if they are powered exclusively by synthetic fuels in a climate-neutral way.” Synthetic or electronic fuels are either refined by factories or manufactured with basic chemical processes and electricity. If electricity is generated from renewable sources, such as wind or solar, then fuels are considered “climate neutral” because their combustion releases into the atmosphere only as much carbon as was previously removed. However, critics argue that the limited supply of electronic fuel should be intended for those modes of transport where electrification is not currently possible, such as airplanes. Experts at the Energy and Climate Research Institute in Juelich, Germany, estimate that a mid-size car powered by synthetic fuel will consume seven times more energy than a comparable electric vehicle. Wissing is under pressure from the powerful German car lobby group VDA, which has criticized the European Parliament vote as “a decision against innovation and technology”. It is unclear whether his position is shared by the rest of the German government. Environmentalists hailed the EU vote as a way to set Europe on a greener future. Cars account for about 12% of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU. The bloc aims to reduce emissions from all sources to zero by 2050, and experts say road transport is one area achieve this goal earlier. Follow all the AP stories on climate change at
